While the report highlights that almost a third of children aged two to 15 are overweight or obese, putting them at greater risk of health problems in later life, it focuses heavily on primary-age children.
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Yet other measures recommended by the Commons Health Select committee a year ago – such as banning junk food advertising during popular family TV shows and an outright ban on supermarkets placing candies and junk food at checkouts or the ends of aisles – do not appear.
At the time, Britvic CMO Matt Barwell highlighted that the brand already has strict rules in place over advertising to children, saying it does not advertise to children aged under 12, does not use licensed characters and does not associate with online games or gaming.
She added: “It is deeply concerning that there is no mention of plans to tackle the marketing which is aimed at children, which can normalise and incentivise unhealthy habits”.
When pressed on concerns that the government had “watered down” the proposals to limit junk food advertising, she said the United Kingdom already had some of the “toughest restrictions in the world”.
“We already have a £5 billion bill every year for diabetes and complex problems that can follow on from this terrible, chronic disease”.
Medical experts and campaigners criticised the strategy – centred on the sugar tax – as “weak and embarrassing”.
Major manufacturers including Nestlé, Kellogg and Premier Foods are reviewing the details of “Childhood Obesity: A Plan for Action” – a strategy published by the government today (August 18) to “significantly reduce England’s rate of childhood obesity within the next ten years”.
She added: ‘We’ve looked at a whole range of policies over the past year, this is the plan that we’re putting forward, it’s a cross-Government plan’.
In a post on his Facebook account, Oliver said: “It contains a few nice ideas, but so much is missing”.
She said one of the problems with the reformulation was that it is “quite technical”.
Manufacturers and trade groups have reacted to the publication of the United Kingdom government document “Childhood Obesity: A Plan for Action”, which calls for a 20% cut in sugar levels in a range of categories. It pointed to the 2011 “responsibility deal” where the food industry was made responsible for policing themselves, and argued that voluntary measures do not work.
Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine and chairman of the Action on Sugar campaign group, said it was “an insulting response” to Britain’s obesity and diabetes crisis which “will bankrupt the NHS unless something radical is done”. “This will bankrupt the NHS unless something radical is done”.
Under the strategy, the government will introduce a sugar tax on soft drinks from 2018. The new levy will not be paid on milk-based drinks and fruit juices.
The soft drinks industry criticised the Government’s plan, referencing an Oxford Economics study that shows the tax will lead to the loss of more than 4,000 jobs across the United Kingdom and a £132m hit to the economy.
But Gavin Partington, Director General of the British Soft Drinks Association, said the levy was a “punitive tax” that would “cause thousands of job losses and yet fail to have a meaningful impact on levels of obesity”. “Government took on the tobacco industry effectively, although it was a tough challenge, and can do it again now”.
The PHE will set targets for sugar content per 100g, and calorie caps for certain products.
“It is becoming abundantly clear that replacing a critical ingredient of a product, or single nutrient in a diet, is neither an easy process for food companies nor a successful obesity strategy”, she said.
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“Reformulation is hard and costly: there are different challenges for each product; recipe change can only proceed at a pace dictated by consumers”, said FDF director general Ian Wright. Our cereals are typically low-calorie, low-fat choices that are fortified with vitamins and minerals and yet only contribute around 6% of the sugar in the nation’s diet according to the government’s own data about what we eat.
